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As we witnessed from the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, disasters can happen. There's no reason for millions of Americans to remain needlessly at risk from dangerous chemicals when safer alternatives exist.

Tell the President you support him using his authority to act now to reduce the risk from chemical plants.  We need him to safeguard the safety and health of millions of Americans.

Chemical facilities that store or use large quantities of deadly chemicals have been called “stationary weapons of mass destruction.”  EPA data indicate there are 483 chemical facilities in the U.S. that each put 100,000 or more people at risk of a chemical disaster. The Homeland Security Council estimated that an attack on a chlorine gas facility would kill 17,500 people, seriously injure 10,000 more people, and send an additional 100,000 people to the hospital.

Yet it is possible to make chemical plants inherently safer by reducing quantities of hazardous chemicals handled or stored, substituting less hazardous chemicals for extremely hazardous ones, or otherwise modifying them to reduce or eliminate chemical hazards.

In fact, since 2001 more than 220 chemical facilities have switched to safer and more secure chemical processes, eliminating these risks to 38.5 million people in 47 states. In November 2009, the Clorox Company announced plans to convert all of its U.S. facilities to eliminate the use of chlorine gas and inherent risks to nearby communities. Unfortunately, hundreds of high-risk plants have failed to convert.

While he served in the U.S. Senate, President Obama was a leader on chemical disaster prevention.  On the Senate floor he said:

... by employing safer technologies, we can reduce the attractiveness of chemical plants as a target...Each one of these methods reduces the danger that chemical plants pose to our communities and makes them less appealing targets for terrorists.

We therefore respectfully urge President Obama to use his authority under the Clean Air Act to direct the EPA to immediately issue new rules to eliminate the unnecessary risks that chemical plants pose to millions of people. The use of safer alternatives will not only prevent catastrophic accidents but will also dramatically reduce the attractiveness of chemical plants as targets of terrorism.